For the fourth consecutive year, Baker Donelson has achieved Mansfield Certification Plus status, a structured certification process designed to ensure all talent at participating law firms has a fair and equal opportunity to advance into leadership.
Mansfield, a project of Diversity Lab, is focused on broadening the talent pool for consideration, including those historically underrepresented in the legal profession, to facilitate transparent pathways to leadership.
To achieve Mansfield Certification, law firms implement a behavioral science and data-driven approach – designed by talent experts, data scientists, and lawyers – to help increase diversity in leadership. Focused on opening the door wider and ensuring that opportunities are inclusive, certified firms considered broad slates of qualified talent for leadership roles that included at least 30% historically underrepresented lawyers – such as women lawyers, underrepresented racial and ethnic lawyers, LGBTQ+ lawyers, and lawyers with disabilities. In addition, as part of the Certification process, law firms work to enhance transparency related to leadership roles, advancement processes, and compensation policies.
Mansfield Certification Plus is an added designation reserved for firms that voluntarily measure the outcomes of their inclusive processes and have achieved positive results. Only about half of the Certified firms achieved the Certification Plus honor this year.
Baker Donelson's Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Mark A. Baugh said, "By continuing to attain Mansfield Plus Certification, our Firm has achieved greater inclusivity among our attorneys and our leadership, which ultimately enhances our client service. We've seen these types of efforts strengthen our ability to consider, recruit, retain, and advance the legal talent that best enables us to meet our clients' needs. Baker Donelson remains committed to creating a truly inclusive environment for all employees, and we're proud to be part of the Mansfield community and an approach that opens opportunities to all."
Mansfield's methodology, which has proven to build more diverse leadership teams, is rooted in changes to systems and processes, not exclusivity or discrimination. Mansfield ensures that opportunities for advancement are inclusive by broadening talent pools instead of instilling quotas, set-asides, or requirements unrelated to an individual's qualifications.
Diversity Lab is an incubator for innovative ideas and solutions that boost diversity and inclusion in law. Experimental ideas are created through hackathons and piloted in collaboration with more than 300 top law firms and legal departments across the country. Diversity Lab leverages data, behavioral science, design thinking, and technology to further develop and test the ideas, measure the results, and share the lessons learned.
attack, these Mansfield firms are making their advancement processes more open and transparent," said Alyssa Jarvis, Director of Mansfield & Strategic Innovations at Diversity Lab. "The firms honored today for achieving Certification have articulated and broadened the paths to leadership. The expectations, and avenues to success, have never been clearer. And this commitment to transparency benefits everyone. I am proud to work with each of these firms."
Baker Donelson strives to create an inclusive environment for all employees, welcoming people of all races, genders, ages, languages, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, disabilities, sexual orientations, and religious beliefs to assist clients in achieving their legal goals. As a Mansfield Rule Certified Plus firm for the fourth consecutive year, Baker Donelson affirmatively considers broad slates of qualified talent for leadership roles that included at least 30% historically underrepresented lawyers – such as women lawyers, underrepresented racial and ethnic lawyers, LGBTQ+ lawyers, and lawyers with disabilities.